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Published: October 12th 2006
Mont St. Michel
During one of the moments of sunshineHello everyone!
As always, I've had an eventful time since my last entry. My classes are very interesting; they require a lot of work, but it is incredibly easy to procrastinate because there are rarely any specific assignments. For instance, in The Palestinian Question, we have a few books that cover the material of the class in greater detail. In order to write a paper or complete the final exam, it is highly recommended to read these huge books (the one I've bought is 950 pages). It requires a lot of disicipline to get started on books that are so large and complex (and written in French).
My grammar class is different from the rest of my classes in that we have daily work to do, although it is not graded. The professor is incredibly educated in the nuances of the French language, and is really a very good teacher. She a little tricky though, when we don't understand a vocab word or expression, there's a 50/50 chance that she will stop the lesson and attentively explain it, reassuring us that its always okay to ask questions; the other 50% of the time, she'll just declare incredulously that she
can't believe we don't know that word, and we should pay more attention in the future. She certainly keeps you on your toes. We've been studying about writing styles and techniques, plus some intensive grammar excercises. I've already learned so much in the class, but it is a lot of work. I know I wouldn't have done very well in a class like this in the states, but here I'm surrounded by French day and night so it becomes so much easier to figure out grammatical nuances.
As far as music goes, I've rented a viola here. It is not as good as my instrument back home, but we get along pretty well together. Also, the rooms I practice in (at my house, and at the institute) have great acoustics, so I sound a lot better than I'm actually playing. I've have joined the Universtiy Orchestra, and like most school groups (sports included), the goal isn't so much performance excellence but participation. I'm meeting lots of young French people, like my stand partner Estelle who is incredibly sweet. In addition to enjoying the community of the orchestra, I'm learning a music vocabulary and I'm seeing a little bit of
Gargoyles
These were on many of the walls at Mont St. Michel the French music style. I've also started my private viola lessons. The professor comes to IES on Wednesdays to teach me and Molly (who plays violin very well). He is a professional violinist and violist; I would say he is in his late 20s. I have a 45 minute lesson, followed by a 30 minute duet session with Molly. He is very insightful and helpful, and is good about using terms I can understand. One problem so far is that I don't know solfege (do, re, mi, fa...) and here they name all the notes with solfege and not letters of the alphabet (my A string is now a LA). So that kind of slows things down a bit.
Last week, I went to the movie theater and saw Pirates of the Carribbean II dubbed into French. It was really fun to watch, and I had a much easier time understading the French because I have seen the movie before in English. Now, I really can't wait to see the third one!
Two Saturdays ago, IES took us to see Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo. Mont Saint Michel is a village that was built in the middle
of a beach. It is surrounded by sand, and during high tides is surrounded by water (at least it used to be). The road that they built out to it interferes with the tides, and so it is very rarely surrounded by water anymore, however, they are planning on redoing the road so that the tides will return to their normal height. The base of the village is mostly tourist shops and restaurants, but when you climb up above the village, you reach the Abbey. It is still a working abbey with monks, but during the day it is a very popular tourist attraction. It is a huge structure with a small cathedral, gardens, chapels, cloisters, and tons of sculptures and statues. We spend a few hours touring the abbey, and then took an hour bus ride to St. Malo. St. Malo is a town surrounded entirely by a fortified wall (although a much larger city has grown up around it). We toured the ramparts, and were then left to wander for a while. Throughout the entire day, we had the typical weather of Brittany (unpredictable boughts of rain and sunshine), so we spent most of the day putting on
Ramparts at St. Malo
The fortified wall separating the sea and the city and taking off raincoats. Even though it was raining and the sky was gray, some of us went down to the beach to see the ocean. Suddenly, the weather cleared up and we saw a perfect rainbow over the water. We could see the entire arch of it, and we could see each color distintly, though I don't think any of our pictures could do it justice. The rest of the group, who had stayed in cafes or creperies instead of coming to the beach, were very jealous.
This weekend, I went to Toulouse and Bordeaux with Amy, Andrew, Katie, Andrew, and Allie. We left Friday afternoon and took a 8 hour train trip to Toulouse. We had a hard time finding our hotel that night, but we finally got there. The hotel was quite an experience, but what can you expect for 66 euro a night for 5 people? The rooms were very small and the toilets and showers were located in the hallway. Also, we made a tactical error in not eating before we found the hotel. There were absolutely no restaurants or stores close to the hotel, so we had a vending machine dinner of Uncle
Ben's rice and 3 candy bars. The next day, we took a tram into the city and had breakfast at a boulangerie (a store with breads and pastries). Then we went to the center of the city to explore the farmers market, which has all sorts of foods and produce, including honey, meat, tofu products, and fish. We also visited the Musee des Beaux Arts (every city seems to have one) which was housed in an old monastary. They had a large collection of Catholic art as well as classical statues. My favorite room was a huge red chamber that seemed to have no theme at all: it was filled with paintings ranging from the 18th century to the 20th century. In the afternoon, we took a guided historical tour of Toulouse. We didn't understand everything the tourguide said, but we did get to see all sorts of interesting landmarks that we would have never noticed. Before going out that night, we returned to the hotel to have a wonderful nap. In order to compensate for the mediocre dinner the night before, we went out to our first nice French restaurant. It was very fancy and formal (for our standards), and the food was great. I had a vinagrette salad served with a flake pastry with goat cheese and honey for my entree (what we would call an appetizer) and for my plat principal I had rabbit in plum sauce. For dessert, we all shared an incredibly rich chocolate cake and creme brulee. After dinner, we wandered around the city looking for a dance club, but didn't end up finding anything we liked. We ran into a problem that evening because the trams stop running at midnight, and it was very difficult to find an alternate means to get back to the hotel. We knew we would be out late, so we had brought the phone number of the taxi company. However, there was such a large demand for taxis that we could only find one. So three of us went back the hotel, while the other two waited for the other taxi we ordered. After repeated calls to the taxi company, we gave up on getting a second taxi; so Andrew and Katie ended up walking home. We got up early the next morning and went to mass at the Cathedral (which happens to be the largest church in all of Europe). Sadly, there weren't very many people at the mass, but the priest was very good and the scenery was spectacular. After mass, we went to the train station to go to Bordeaux, where we only stayed for a few hours. We had just enough time there to eat lunch and walk down to a huge bridge to take in the view. We slept for most of the ride back to Nantes, altough we did have a heated game of Rummy towards the end of the voyage. I got home at about 10:00 Sunday night, and altough it was very difficult to get myself to grammar class at 8:00 Monday morning, I was very glad we decided to take this little weekend excursion.
Joyous news: I recieved a box from home today with trail mix and peanut butter. Life is good.
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Mom, Dad, Michael and Mae
non-member comment
Just like being there (almost)
So delighted to see your latest entry. What an incredible trip! Love hearing all the details and seeing the pictures. Can't wait to hear about your "castle tour".